Our story
During our careers in-house, we spent millions working with executive search firms and were too often underwhelmed by the service and the outcome. Too many searches ended in no hire, or the wrong hire.
It was expensive, frustrating, and it led us to build our own in-house Executive Search capability. It quickly became the preferred way to hire senior leaders.
Having worked together at Dyson, the BBC and Aston Martin Formula One, we decided to build a company providing that capability to more companies.
Today, Barker Owen is inspired by the wish list of things we wanted when we were sitting on the client side of the table.
How we’re different
As in-house Talent leaders, we ‘lived with our hires’ once a candidate accepted an offer. We worked alongside the leaders we placed, supported their onboarding, and watched them succeed, struggle and grow.
That experience gave us something most search firms never get: the chance to see whether our assessment was actually right — and to keep refining how we identify exceptional leaders and outliers for specific cultures.
We work differently to larger firms, handling every search personally from start to finish with no delegation. You get experienced partners who know what exceptional executive search looks like, who are personally invested in finding great leaders.
What clients say
